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The Week Ahead: Jan. 29 - Feb. 4

One-person shows tend to fall into two distinct camps: the confessional or the celebrity-driven. This week offers new examples of both species, including one that touches on another common solo-show category: the comic. (That makes three varieties, for those keeping score at home.) Starting Monday, JASON FISHER will be channeling the comic outrage of the title character in "LENNY BRUCE ... IN HIS OWN WORDS," at the ZIPPER THEATER. Mr. Fisher, 33, started playing Bruce last fall in Los Angeles, where critics approved and audiences followed suit. The show is drawn directly from transcripts of Bruce's routines from 1959 to his death in 1966, a period during which Bruce - a First Amendment die-hard and savage wit - fought drug and obscenity charges with furious onstage routines while simultaneously self-destructing. That tragic arc has already been mined for a Broadway play ("Lenny" in 1971) and its 1974 film adaptation (starring Dustin Hoffman). Now, Bruce reappears off Broadway, not far from where he burned brightly and burned out. 336 West 37th Street, garment district, (212) 239-6200; $30 and $40.

STEVEN FALES, a Mormon and married father of two, was confronted with a different type of agony (but has the same type of show). Gay but closeted, Mr. Fales fought his sexual orientation for years - complete with "reparative therapy" to cure his homosexuality - before spiraling into a life of prostitution and drug use. When he resurfaced and cleaned up, Mr. Fales started writing, eventually turning his story into "CONFESSIONS OF A MORMON BOY," a 90-minute solo act that has played all across the country, including in Salt Lake City, where it was called "unflinchingly honest." New York critics will take a look this week at the SOHO PLAYHOUSE, 15 Vandam Street, between the Avenue of the Americas and Varick Street, (212) 691-1555; $50 and $55.

FILM

Dave Kehr

If BORIS KARLOFF had played no other role in his life than the nameless monster in James Whale's 1931 "Frankenstein," his place in film history would still be assured. Karloff's lumbering creature, played on platform shoes and from beneath layers of rigid, painful makeup, is at once a murderous nonhuman and one of the most sympathetic characters ever to appear on film. Even as the monster commits his most horrifying act in "FRANKENSTEIN" - tossing a little girl into a mountain lake, to see if she will float as prettily as the daisies she has been launching on the lake's surface - Karloff communicates his innate gentleness, his unformed yearnings, his irrational but inescapable need to fit in with a society that has decisively rejected him.

But Karloff did have other arrows in his quiver, several of which will be on display this week as FILM FORUM presents a condensed series of Karloff films. "Frankenstein" is the opening attraction, of course, screening on Friday and Saturday, on a double bill with the outlandishly racist "MASK OF FU MANCHU," directed by Charles Brabin in 1932.

A double of "BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN" (1935) and "THE MUMMY" (1932) next Sunday, completes the crash course in Karloff classics, while the rest of the week is devoted to fan favorites and rarities, among them two pre-"Frankenstein" appearances on Feb. 6 , in Rowland V. Lee's "GUILTY GENERATION" (1931) and Christy Cabanne's "GRAFT"; Edgar G. Ulmer's "BLACK CAT" (1934) , with Karloff's most cruel and urbane performance on Feb. 7; a pair of non-horror appearances on Feb. 8, in John Ford's "LOST PATROL" (1934) and Howard Hawks's "CRIMINAL CODE" (1931); and on Feb. 9, the little seen "HAUNTED STRANGLER" of 1958, and Karloff's last important performance, playing an aging horror star confronted by modern violence in Peter Bogdanovich's thoughtful "TARGETS" from 1968. 209 West Houston Street, South Village, (212) 727-8110.

If Eliza Doolittle were around today, she wouldn't be a Cockney flower girl. She'd probably be what the British call a ladette, a young woman trying to be one of the lads by drinking to excess, shouting four-letter words and, if necessary, belching. In "LADETTE TO LADY," imported by the SUNDANCE CHANNEL (Thursday, 9 p.m.), some tasteful teachers play Henry Higgins at tasteful Eggleston Hall. They take on 10 proud ladettes, who compete to be transformed into the sorts of girls PRINCE WILLIAM could bring home. The first step is putting them into sweater sets and pearls. Even viewers who think most reality series are drivel may find this one entertaining.

The British do that sort of thing so well. Then, sometimes, American television takes a British series and wrings the social anthropology out of it. Yes, the big one is back. "SURVIVOR: PANAMA - EXILE ISLAND" has its season premiere Thursday night at 8 on CBS. A new batch of attractive people (including a retired astronaut, a performance artist and a social worker) compete for big money by being devious and manipulative.

There is plenty of worthy, culturally significant programming ahead for Black History Month, but one of the most intriguing specials comes from an unlikely source: TV LAND. WAYNE BRADY is a much better stand-up comedian than he is a talk-show host, but he doesn't need to be scintillating on "THAT'S WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT," which begins on Wednesday (10 p.m.). His guests (HARRY BELAFONTE, DIAHANN CARROLL, PAUL MOONEY and TOURÃ on the first of the three one-hour segments) take the ball and run with it, with some promising straight talk about perceptions of race in popular culture. The old clips and photos speak volumes. And the list of most influential black television shows puts "THE JEFFERSONS" ahead of "ROOTS."

DANCE

Jack Anderson

Beware of artistic pigeonholing. The most exciting arts groups often transcend categorization. Consider the NEW YORK CITY BALLET. Because that company is so strongly associated with plotless or abstract ballets, it's easy to forget that many works in its repertory do tell stories.

Take this week's repertory. George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins set a Russian fairy tale dancing in their version of "FIREBIRD" (Sunday afternoon, Thursday and Saturday nights). Robbins celebrates the sheer joy of playing "let's pretend" in "MOTHER GOOSE" (Sunday afternoon, Tuesday night and Saturday afternoon), in which dancers vividly retell several French fairy tales with the aid of just a few simple props and pieces of fabric. SEAN LAVERY makes a ballet out of the Balcony Scene from "ROMEO AND JULIET" (Saturday afternoon). Robbins follows three sailors on shore leave in "FANCY FREE" (Saturday night) and CHRISTOPHER WHEELDON's "AMERICAN IN PARIS" depicts the adventures of a young man in love (Friday night and Saturday afternoon).

Those ballets have specific plots. The drama in others may be implicit. Yet it's there. Just look at Balanchine's "DUO CONCERTANT" (Wednesday night and Saturday afternoon) or Robbins's "IN THE NIGHT" (Friday night). People in them may not be named Romeo, Juliet or anything else. But they're clearly joyous, yearning or troubled lovers. Tuesday and Wednesday at 7:30 p.m., Thursday and Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 2 and 8 p.m., next Sunday at 3 p.m. New York State Theater, Lincoln Center, (212) 721-6500 or www.nycballet.com; $20 to $86.

City Ballet is not the only ballet troupe telling stories these days. BALLET BIARRITZ, from France, is offering THIERRY MALANDAIN's "CREATION," which combines the biblical tale of Creation with the history of dance - all in only 70 minutes. It should be quite an epic. Tuesday through Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 2 and 8 p.m., next Sunday at 2 p.m., Joyce Theater, 175 Eighth Avenue, at 19th Street, Chelsea, (212) 242-0800; $40.

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Two indestructible sopranos, though of a different ilk, will have a lot to say about the coming week in music. ANJA SILJA, who seems to go on forever, makes a stop at the MET ORCHESTRA concert on Sunday at Carnegie Hall. Ms. Silja brings one of her signature pieces, Schoenberg's neurosis-inducing and dolefully melancholy musical soliloquy called "ERWARTUNG." JAMES LEVINE will also conduct Bartok's "MIRACULOUS MANDARIN" and Stravinsky's ever-earthshaking "SACRE DU PRINTEMPS." 3 p.m., (212) 247-7800; $46 to $155.

New York's own soprano-survivor, APRILE MILLO, surfaces at the COLLEGIATE CHORALE's concert on Monday. There is a chance to hear "LE VILLI," Puccini's first and little heard opera. Act III of his "TURANDOT" will give Ms. Millo a chance to test the rafters and also an opportunity for listeners to test LUCIANO BERIO's thoughts in a new ending to this unfinished piece. ROBERT BASS conducts the excellent Orchestra of St. Luke's and HEI-KYUNG HONG is among the other singers. Carnegie Hall, 8 p.m.; $25 to $125.

And as long as sopranos are on your mind, remember that ANGELA GHEORGHIU, the Romanian diva, is still in town, bringing her highly charged voice and musicianship, not to mention glamour, to one of Verdi's highly charged soprano roles: Violetta in "LA TRAVIATA." Saturday at 8 p.m., Metropolitan Opera House, Lincoln Center, (212) 362-6000; $42 to $220.

For the historically minded, the Met's performances on Tuesday and at Saturday's matinee remind us of another composer who tried to finish "Turandot." FRANCO ALFANO's version was commissioned by Toscanini in the mid-1920's and has been the standard, if much criticized, solution to the gap Puccini left. In a revival, Alfano will speak for himself with his opera "CYRANO DE BERGERAC." Featured will be the equally historic PLÃCIDO DOMINGO and the estimable SONDRA RADVANOVSKY. Tuesday at 7:30 p.m., Saturday at 1:30 p.m., Metropolitan Opera House; sold out Tuesday, $42 and $220 remaining on Saturday.

POP/JAZZ

Ben Sisario

It's not easy to be an avant-garde rock band these days - just about everything has been done before, from extremely quiet to extremely loud, from monotonously droney to cartoonishly unpredictable. Which is why the endlessly surprising San Francisco band DEERHOOF stands out so much. A decade into its career, the group still has plenty of tricks. Its stop-start songs, with jagged guitars and a drum style somewhere between jazz and metal, sound intriguingly extraterrestrial beside Satomi Matsuzaki's nursery-rhyme vocals. The band tours constantly, and has refined its timing and dynamics to spectacular precision. Monday at 7:30 p.m., Bowery Ballroom, 6 Delancey Street, near the Bowery, Lower East Side, (212) 533-2111; $13 (sold out).

On Saturday night, ROGER MILLER of Mission of Burma, who is one of the granddaddies of the kind of postpunk experimental rock that Deerhoof plays, will be at Pianos with WILLIAM HOOKER, a pummeling jazz drummer who has never met a downtown musician he could not collaborate with. At 9:30 p.m., 158 Ludlow Street, near Rivington Street, Lower East Side, (212) 505-3733; $15.

HIGH ON FIRE, on the other hand, is one of those rare bands that does not seem to need to innovate much at all because it has boiled a particular kind of music down to its purest elemental form. For the band's first two albums, that sound was what is quite affectionately known as stoner metal: fuzzy, slowish head-nodders in the tradition of Black Sabbath and the Melvins. But with "Blessed Black Wings" (Relapse) last year, innovate the band did, speeding everything up to a frenzied adrenaline rush. And with lyrics like "Stolen ancient amulet/ Black the hexed sarcophagus," it all feels like one of those gigantic battle scenes in the "Lord of the Rings" movies. Friday at 9 p.m., Bowery Ballroom; $17.

ART/ARCHITECTURE

Grace Glueck

Birds have always made great subjects for artists, because of their colorful plumage and graceful body shapes. But there are some that, even though low on beauty, waddle into the picture anyway, like the ungainly duck by an unknown Roman artist of the third to the fifth centuries A.D. in the Brooklyn Museum's current show of Jewish mosaics from the Roman Empire. Its cartoony bill and clumsy webbed feet are the essence of duckhood, giving it a lovably familiar presence.

More birds not likely to win beauty awards appear in two photography shows opening on Thursday. "THE POULTRY SUITE" by the portrait photographer JEAN PAGLIUSO at the MARLBOROUGH GALLERY, presents straight-on close-ups of more than 20 kinds of chickens, from Frizzes to Rhode Island Reds, with particular attention to their plumage, heads and feet. Printed using a hand-applied silver gelatin emulsion, they look like painterly portraits of boardroom dignitaries. 40 West 57th Street, Manhattan, (212) 541-4900, through March 4.

At the BONNI BENRUBI GALLERY, the bulky dodo bird, extinct since the 17th century, seems to be alive and well, at least as caught by the lens of the Finnish photographer HARRI KALLIO in its native habitat, the tropical island of Mauritius. His accurately reconstructed models - with their huge hooked bills, short legs and necks and rudimentary wings - frequent mountaintops, valleys and dense woodlands, blissfully undisturbed by the invasion of humans and imported animals like the hog that apparently led to their demise. 41 East 57th Street, Manhattan, (212) 888-6007, through April 1.